Letter from a Friend expressing sympathies for Washing Day

1854

8" x 10" handwritten letter on blue stationery. Addressed to "Friend." Signed Tiberius Caesar. Dated Feb 8th, 1854, Lunenberg. Contains [original?] poem on the tribulations of Washing Day. Letter reads: Lunenburg, Feb 8th 1854 [or 1856?] Dear Friend. The following lines seem very appropriate to your case. You have my heartfelt sympathy in your tribulation. It is my daily wish that the time will soon arrive, when you may be freed from the blighting curse, of wh[ich] you wrote: it is truly enough to cause even the most sanguine to despair, the most energetic to become impotent, the most determined to falter, to be continually under the influence of the demon which rules on Washing day! Entrenched as I am behind the impregnable walls of Bachelorship, I can laugh at and defy all attempts of the spirit infernal to reach me. But yet I can deeply sympathize with others, who having foolishly allowed themselves to be overcome by the darts and the arts of Cupid are now totally and irremediably in the power of the infernal genius of Washing Day. May the lines wh[ich] follow console you. “Again the sun his course has run. Again, another week’s begun; Again the cock with clarion shrill, Awakes the housewife, ‘gainst her will.” “The birth-day of poor Job, so curst, Of all days in the week the worst, When chambermaids and nurses bawl, And cooks and washers quarrel all!” “When not one room is placed in order, And every one helps the disorder All noise is drowned in washers cry, And all are blind with suds that fly!” “The waiter moves with sullen mope, Cursing the man that first made soap, And little children left all day To hunt their food and find their play,” “Wish, with their faces all forlorn, That washing day had ne’er been born! Amid such scenes the lingering day, To joy of all, this wears away.” “And cares forgot, they lay their heads Upon their soft and downy beds, And soon are slumb’ring sound and deep Snoring a blessing to the inventor of sleep.” Yours Sympathizingly, Tiberius Caesar